Christ's Borrowed Faces--January 1, 2021

 Christ's Borrowed Faces--January 1, 2021

"This [the grace of God] you learned from Epaphras, your fellow beloved servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf, and he has made known to us your love in the Spirit." [Colossians 1:7-8]

When I think of how to make dinner rolls, I picture the church matriarch who taught a kitchen full of learners her recipe with all of her own color commentary as she went, not just a cookbook recipe.

Whenever we clean up a big church dinner (and yes, there will come a day again when we have those), I picture the exquisite and elegant lady who used to fold the blue and white check tablecloths with near military precision, and how we think of her still every time we set the church social hall for pancakes or spaghetti.

Whenever I am called upon to enter a room where death has visited recently, I picture the dear saint, whom I loved very much (and who occasionally cussed with a surprising fervor for an octagenarian), who allowed me as a very new pastor to clumsily offer words of comfort and pray with her in her living room when her husband died.

And whenever I am afraid of what the future holds, but feel that it is rushing toward with unstoppable momentum, I picture the kind man who first welcomed me to a one-room church building, to kneel at the altar rail with him and pray when I was first called to serve as his pastor while he served as council president.

And whether I recognized it at the time or not, I have now come to see that in each of these moments, Christ was borrowing these faces to meet me... and I dare to believe that at the very same time Christ borrowed my face for them, as well, even if he had to work in spite of me, too.

This is how it is among the followers of Jesus.  This is how it has always been--Christ borrows our faces and comes through us, through our ordinariness, and very very human-ness, to bring grace to light among us.  We don't learn Christianity in the abstract. As much as this year's surge of online communications has led us to find ways to connect on screens and in phone calls, in video worship services and virtual gatherings, God's good news still come to us through people.  There are no anonymous golden tablets or carved stone monuments--there is always the story, the love, the teaching, the encouragement, that comes through other people.

Your list of names and faces through whom God's love has come to you will be different from mine, of course.  Your story with all its twists and turns has brought different people into your life at different moments, and in different ways--from Sunday School teachers and pastors to random strangers, friends, confidants, and family members.  Some will be people who were in your life for a very long time; others will have spent a season intersecting with your life and then be gone.  But don't miss the connective thread running through all of them--Christ has been at work in all of them, loving you through them, speaking to you in them, shaping you with their words, their presence, their time, and their love.  They may come and go as their path weaves in and out with your own, but it is worth being thankful for having had them in our lives for as long as we were given.

And for whatever list of faces and names come to your or my mind when we look back at those who have accompanied us on our life's journey, it is worth considering that for twenty centuries now, disciples of Jesus have been learning and sharing and loving and working together, so there are a lot more faces Christ has worn than any of us can count.  For the early church in Colossae, one of them was this fellow the apostle mentions, named Epaphras.  As the letter we call Colossians goes on, we'll learn more about him, just as other letters in the New Testament highlight other figures who were leaders, helpers, and teachers in those early days--names like Timothy and Titus, Stephen and Silas, Barnabas and Epaphroditus.  We don't necessarily have a lot of details about any of them, but we do know what it it like to have people like them who are instruments of the living God--faces that Christ borrows--to be with us and shepherd us along the way.  They are the people who, as Fred Rogers would say, "have loved us into being."  And again, like I say, while I never had the chance to know this Epaphras that the Colossians knew, I know the faces and names of those whom Christ has used in my life, and I can be thankful for Epaphras just as I am thankful for the people whose witness, love, and time directly touched my own.

The turning of a calendar year is a good time to remember these folks, these names, and these stories.  Their faces in our memories remind us that there are really no clean breaks in this life, and maybe that is the way it must be.  We are always the collection of experiences and memories that have brought us to the present moment. And we never quite leave the old year behind when we start a new one.  So even though I know we are all hoping for much to be new and restored and fresh and changed in the year that starts now, it is also worth being thankful for all that will remain constant through the turn of years.  Those who have loved us into being still are at the core of our identity.  Those who have taught us how to be decent and honest, those who wept with us when our hearts were breaking, those who cheered for us when we tried new ventures, and those who helped our minds to understand maybe even just a smidge more clearly the Mystery of the God who is love--they haven't left us, but they continue to be a part of us as we step forward into the new.  Far back in that chain of saints are faces we never met, like Epaphras, and yet his love and care affected people whose story rippled out into the lives of others who eventually touched the lives of those who directly touched our own.  All of them stand in the background as people through whom Christ loved people... and has loved us, as well.

For whatever new things you and I are hoping for in the new year, it is worth a moment here to be thankful for those faces Christ has borrowed in our past to make us the people we are... and to know that Christ will continue to be up to the same work in the new year as well.  He will be borrowing more faces this year to touch your life.  He will borrow again some of the faces you have seen him in during the year we are leaving behind.  He will come to you in new faces you did not expect (and which may surprise you at first when he appears wearing them!).  And he will again borrow your own face to meet someone else who will need the gifts you bring--the words, the ears, the love, the serving, the time.

And then one day--one day in glory, alongside those other faces who come to our minds with tears in the corners of our minds--we will all be gathered around Jesus' table and will tell the stories of how Christ appeared among us over and over and again, as the poet says, playing in ten thousand places.

Until then, keep an eye out for Christ and his many faces today.

Lord Jesus, come among us in the human faces of those through whom you love us into being--and let us be your faces for others as well today.

In On The Joke--December 31, 2020

In On the Joke--December 31, 2020

"Just as [the gospel] is bearing fruit and growing in the whole world, so it has been bearing from among yourselves from the day you heard it and truly comprehended the grace of God." [Colossians 1:6b]

The gospel, despite all the ways that theologians and Respectable Religious People have complicated it, is really almost so simple that it sounds too good to be true.  Like watching fireflies or a meteor shower on a summer night and knowing that something beautiful and wonderful is being offered right before your eyes, so long as you don't blink for too long and miss it.  Or like a joke whose punch line so completely surprises you that you are elated to the point of hilarious tears, the gospel comes as the announcement that you are already home free before you've even embarked on the first step of your quest.

And, in all seriousness, the gospel is something like a joke in that it's something you "get," not by forcing yourself to learn correct facts or theological jargon or by completing the correct religious tasks, but like something that happens to you.  When someone tells a joke and then elbows you after the punch line while saying, "Get it?  Get it?" they aren't asking if you possess enough knowledge to pass an aptitude test--they are asking whether the exhilarating experience of the comedic twist has hit you yet.  "Getting it" is an experience rather like an epiphany--it dawns on you, rather than being an achievement.  And "getting it," when it comes to the gospel, is in so many words, the epiphany that God has already "gotten" you, and that God's getting doesn't depend on your "getting it" first.

It is, as Paul Tillich once said, about accepting the fact that you are already accepted.  It's about comprehending that you don't have to comprehend the Mystery who is God in order for that God's love to encompass and claim you.  It's what happens to you when you realize you are loved regardless of how unlovely or loveless you have been--and that you are just as completely, recklessly, beloved even when you have a hard time believing it is true.  "Getting it" when it comes to the gospel is like wrapping your mind around the fact that you belong even when you can't wrap your mind around grace.  It is, in the end, the awareness that your grip on God is not ultimately what saves you, but God's grip on you--and that God ain't letting go of you.  Ever.

So when the apostle here talks with the Colossians about how the gospel is growing and bearing fruit in them since the day they first "comprehended the grace of God," he's not patting them on the back for being clever enough or smart enough to learn their theology lessons or score an A+ on their religion exams.  He's saying, "Y'all get it--you 'get' the reality that you've been claimed by God as a free gift already, and there are no exams!  And you have let that free gift change your own outlook so that you can be people of recklessly free grace to others, too!"

And that's it--the gospel does change us, but it's like unclenching a fist more than boot camp indoctrination.  It's like the way when someone tells you a joke that makes you laugh so hard you spit the water out of your mouth or squeal with delighted tears, you then want to run to tell someone else the very same joke and give the very same joy to them.  The Gospel's freedom and hilarity are contagious, turning us from recipients of its raucously divine comedy into sharers... perpetuators... co-conspirators of grace.

So all this business about how the gospel is growing and bearing fruit isn't a matter of Saint Paul the School Master saying, "I notice how you are all improving in your social graces and how you are all such good boys and girls, now that you have accepted Jesus into your hearts, prayed the right prayer, and put on a good show of piety."  It's more like saying, "You all are in on the joke now--and I notice you're all running out to tell other people the same gut-busting punch-line so they can be in on it, too!  Good job!"

And the gospel will have an effect on us.  After all, once it dawns on you that God's not keeping score, it seems awfully bad form to continue keeping score with other people.  Once you realize that you are the recipient of nothing but divine freebies and that everything (EVERYTHING!) in your life is a gift you did not earn, it becomes a lot harder to be stingy about other people being given good things beyond their deserving, too.  Once you "get it" that you have been infinitely forgiven, grace has a way of making you rejoice to see other people forgiven as well--of debts, sins, and past baggage. And once you've realized that you were accepted by God before you even put it into words or gave it a thought to accept God into your life, well, you're going to want to share that realization far and wide.  Grace changes us--it makes us operate on an economy of mercy with others when we realize that God's only way of dealing with us is by grace.

So today, let it sink in.  Hear the punch line all over again, like it was for the first time. (Maybe, if you've been stuck in Respectable Religious Circles for very long, it really is the first time.)  The Gospel is not a business transaction you have to be savvy enough to accept.  It is not an academic subject you must be intelligent enough to master.  It is the hilarious punch line of God's divine comedy that you and the whole world are beloved, claimed, and chosen apart from anybody's bean-counting or rubrics of good behavior.  And once you get a joke like that, well, what else can we do but find someone else to tell it to?

Lord God, delight us again with the news of your free gift of grace, and let it change us with the audacity of your love.

More Than Checkers--December 30, 2020

More Than Checkers--December 30, 2020

"...because of the hope laid up for you in heaven.  You have heard of this hope before in the word of the truth, the gospel that has come to you." [Colossians 1:5-6a]

I was playing checkers with my daughter the other day.  At seven years old, she's getting the hang of the game, but she still need occasional reminders like, "You can't move that piece backward," or "Be careful--if you move there, I'll want to jump that piece and take it."  So playing a game with her involves a little bit of coaching.

I was thinking, as we were playing on the living room floor, that at one level, me helping my opponent in the game is strategically foolish.  Why help the enemy, right?  In fact, at one point, when my nine-year-old son peeked over to see what we were doing, he offered his own advice to me: "Don't help her, Dad--then she'll beat you!" I know there will come a time when I won't help her any more because she'll want and need to figure things out on her own.  But even then, it won't be because I've decided I don't want to lose at checkers.  So I calmed my son down with the assurance that I knew what I was doing, and that it was OK with me if I helped my daughter to avoid a wrong move in the game--even though she was my opponent in the same game.  His putting it into words for me like that gave me clarity--this wasn't about winning, and it never really had been. And when I am clear about what really matters in the situation, then it doesn't matter at all how many checkers I jump or let go.

Honestly, at the end of my life, it will not have mattered one bit how many games of checkers I have won.  But I hope that over the course of my life, my daughter will have come to learn that she is beloved... and that she will grow up into a thoughtful, clever, intelligent human being.  Every game of checkers is an opportunity both to build our relationship and to sharpen her thinking, but honestly, who wins, or whether I lose an early chance to jump one of her pieces on the board is practically irrelevant.  The time matters, and the game matters--but not in the sense of who wins or loses.  It has almost nothing to do with who has a bigger pile of checkers at the end, and almost everything to do with how the time is spent to help her grow and to build the relationship.  It is a change of perspective that makes all the difference--from the immediate ups and downs of individual moves in a checkers game, to the big picture of life once the pieces are all back in the box.

And that change of perspective is, I believe, something like the shift of vantage point that the apostle has in mind when writing to the Colossians.  There is a difference between living our lives focused solely on immediate gains and self-interest in the moment, and living our lives through the eyes of God's perspective.  You might even call it the difference between heaven and earth.  

I don't mean that simply as a matter of altitude--it's not that heaven is "up there" somewhere, and that the problem with earth is that it's too "low."  It's not even a difference between focusing on the afterlife as opposed to this present life--that's really important to be clear on, because sometimes religious folk make it sound like the Gospel's message is simply, "None of this life matters, so only focus on what happens after you die."  I want to suggest that viewing life from the vantage point of God's space--that is to say, through the lens of God's Reign and God's priorities--will change how we think about the things that matter now.  It will change how we live our lives, what priorities arise to the top of our lists, and what things simply don't matter any more.  It will change the way we play checkers, so to speak.

When I am playing a board game with my kids, I know three things:  first, that the actual stakes of the game itself are pretty piddling, and nobody really cares who wins at Candy Land or Settlers of Catan or checkers.  And second of all, long after the game is done, I will still be these kids' dad, and our relationship will far outlast the time we spend jumping pieces around a board.  And third, at the same time, I can use the way I play the game to do something that deepens my relationship with my kids or teaches them how to be decent human beings... or I can be a shortsighted jerk who only cares about winning.  I suppose I could use every family game night to dunk on my kids and ruthlessly defeat them in every game without helping them to think about their moves, but honestly, that seems to focus a lot more on winning and a lot less on the people they become or how our relationship holds up.

And that's the difference, I think, between living with our hope anchored, as the apostle says, "in heaven," versus putting all your chips (or checkers) on what the world calls "winning" right now.  It's not a matter of mere delayed gratification (as in, "I could have a small prize now, but I'm saving up for a bigger prize for myself later!" which is really just being self-centered on a bigger scale).  It's about a change in what matters.  Either the game of checkers with your kid is about "winning" or it's really about love--and if it's about love, then that will change your strategy in how you play.  You'll see that every move is an opportunity to teach, to model good sportsmanship as well as good thinking, to encourage, to be graceful, and to allow them to grow.  And that will mean a different way of moving your pieces on the board.

That's how the followers of Jesus are called to spend our days, resources, energy, and love--recognizing that the point is not about what the world calls "winning." And in fact it's a terrible shame to waste a lifetime focused on putting Me and My Group First.  If I take seriously that God's perspective is the most important, most definitive lens to see my life and choices through, then I will see everybody else--EVERYBODY ELSE--as someone infinitely beloved of God, and their well-being is more important than me getting a bigger pile of checkers to my name.  If I see that this life is my chance to help others grow while I grow as well, that this life is my opportunity to love and build relationships with all people, and that long after the game pieces are all put away, we will still be in relationship with one another, then I will use my life more more than just racking up points, money, status, or power.  I will be done, once and for all, with the nonsense the blowhards of the world call "winning," and instead will be focused on spending these lesser things--like money, like energy, like popularity, like our game pieces--for the sake of what lasts.  And in the end what lasts is other people, and the love we have kindled in this life.  These things will be held onto into the eternal scheme of things, but not who had more money, and not who had a nicer car.  

So for me at least, that means I'm learning not to be the person anymore who whines, "Why should MY resources (time, energy, tax dollars, what-have-you) go to help THOSE PEOPLE OVER THERE?"  because honestly, my stuff won't last.  But the ones I so easily label "those people" are infinitely precious to God, and they matter more than my 501(k).  Infinitely more.

If I can re-discover that a game of checkers with my daughter isn't really about winning but about love and relationship, then maybe we can all recognize that our whole lives are about love, too.  The game pieces will be put away soon enough, scores forgotten, and winner-status left in the dustbin of history.  But the people we have been placed alongside of in this world--they are precious.  Taking that seriously will change how you and I spend the day before us.

Remember: it's about more than checkers.

Lord God, enable us to see our lives from your vantage point, and let that change our outlook all around.

Loving Over Distances--December 29, 2020

 Loving Over Distances--December 29, 2020

"In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints..." [Colossians 1:3-4]

It's hard to love folks if you can't see their faces.

That is true whether you can't see others because they are far away, or there is a worldwide pandemic going on (you know, hypothetically), or because it is either inconvenient or uncomfortable to acknowledge them and it feels easier somehow to choose not to see their faces.

I was just talking with a church person not long ago, and she said the same just out of the blue--"I miss seeing faces."  That's part of the challenge we are living in right now, the days of a pandemic that includes on-and-off stay-at-home orders and business closures, with winter keeping people indoors on top of that, and the memories of a Christmas just last week when many of us didn't get to see loved ones in person.  We miss not getting to see faces, and we know it is harder to make the effort to love when we don't see people's faces.

It's not that we stop feeling care or concern for others when we aren't in the same room, so much as it's hard to put that emotion into action.  "Love," after all, is a verb before it is a feeling, and we are called to act, speak, and make choices in ways that seek the good of others, whether we "feel" like it or not.  And it's just harder to do good for others when we can't be in the same places with them, you know?  That's just a limitation of being physical beings who live on a planet that, for all our technology, is still a very big place.  These days we are challenged to find ways to love others--not merely to feel nicely toward them at a distance, but to act in ways that do good--when we don't get to see their faces.

I don't think I had ever realized until this very moment, though, how much of the early church was in the very same predicament.  No, they didn't have a pandemic, and no, they didn't have to learn phrases like "social distancing" or "mask policy" or "vaccination protocol," but they did find themselves challenged to love others whose faces they couldn't see--often for a very long time.  We sometimes forget that more than half of the New Testament was written in letter form; in other words, these are communications sent long distance to people who weren't in the same place and didn't get to see each other's faces in person for a very long time.  Sometimes they were writing back and forth between people whom they had never met in person, but still dared to believe they were connected to.  Paul wrote Romans (the longest letter we have from him), for example, before he had ever been to Rome!  And here in the opening verses of Colossians we get the sense that word is getting around in the ancient Christian grapevine that these Christians care for others far beyond their own little community.  They love people whom they haven't met.  They care about people whose faces they have never laid eyes on.  They are committed to the well-being of others who might never cross their path, this side of glory.  It's hard, but they do it anyway.

And of all the things that the apostle can be thankful for, that's what he zeroes in on.  Curious, isn't it?  Not, "You all have doctrinal purity and perfectly precise theology," as much as Paul cares about good theology.  Not, "I'm glad you don't let the riff-raff in to your church," as much as sometimes Respectable Religious people can be fussy about who belongs.  And not even a whiff at all of, "I'm so thankful you have leveraged your situation to get some political influence by endorsing the Empire," because is never something that happens in the Bible, despite all the ways that modern religious folks often sell their souls for a cushy perch with the powerful.  Nope, none of those. Instead, the folks in Colossae are recognized for doing the hard work, day by day, of loving people whose faces they don't get to see.

I want to suggest that we can learn something important as we listen in on this ancient conversation.  Maybe what we are called to do in this moment, our moment in time, is to seek ways to show love to folks when we aren't in the same room with them.  We know how to do good for people we share a house with--you wash the dishes for them, you fold their laundry, you spend time with them, you work to provide clothing and shelter for them, and so on.  We probably even know how to make the effort to show care for people we interact with at the grocery store, through the drive-up window at the bank, or people you see at work.  But for folks we are feeling disconnected from--whether because of distance, or the pandemic, or struggles in our relationship, or whatever else--it's hard to make the effort.  

It's hard, too, to make the effort to show love to people who are far away, or whose stories are different from our own.  It's hard to take the time to get to know someone else's situation, to hear their perspective (even when it causes friction with your own), to consider that their well-being and yours are tied up together, no matter how far away they are.  These are difficult things to do, yes, and it's worth saying out loud that it is difficult.  But being a follower of Jesus--like being just a decent human--includes being willing to do hard things sometimes.  We aren't given a pass from the difficult work of loving people just because it is difficult--we are called to be creative, persistent, and dedicated enough to keep on trying to do the difficult thing.

So today, that may mean we each go out of our way to reach out to someone you haven't seen for a while, but whom you had previously been closer to.  Maybe it's a phone call or text message.  Maybe it's going deeper than small talk and the weather when you speak.  Maybe it's trying to extend an olive branch to someone you've grown distant or estranged from.  Maybe it's a moment of time thinking of who might really feel alone right now and need a reminder that they are cared for.  Maybe it's making a donation that will help someone who will never know your name or what you did--the homeless ministry in your community, the relief organization across the ocean, or somewhere in between.  Maybe the distance to overcome isn't physical at all, but of perspective--and maybe part of loving someone else is seeking to understand where they are coming from rather than unleashing meanness in the comments section on social media.  We are so used to isolating ourselves from people whose stories, situations, perspectives, and needs are different from our own--maybe for us the difficult work of love means learning to see those faces and hear those stories rather than treating others as an anonymous "them" that can be ignored.

It seems to me that we have a good deal to learn from our older brothers and sisters in the faith in Colossae.  They have gone ahead of us and taught us both the importance and the need for learning how to love across distance.  And their example tell us that it can be done.  Today, take the time, and make the effort.  Love someone across a distance today.  Let someone else's love reach you, too.

O God, you who hold all creation in your hand, help us to love not only the faces we see right in front of us, but those whose faces are far away but still always on your mind.

Who We Are Together--December 28, 2020

Who We Are Together--December 28, 2020

"Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to the saints and faithful brothers and sisters in Christ in Colossae:  Grace to you and peace from God our Father." [Colossians 1:1-2]

We are all stuck with each other... because God has chosen to stick with all of us.

Before we go any further into this New Testament letter, we should say that much.  We are all inextricably connected to each other, all the way down to our deepest sense of identity.  We are beings-in-relationship--and that much seems to be fundamental to being human. 

That is, it's not just that you and I have relationships with other people (which we take or leave easily, like changing your clothes).  We are, in a manner of speaking, the sum of our relationships.  Each of us is a point of overlap in a Venn diagram, a point of intersection of all the people with whom I relate in all the unique ways that are mine to relate to them, and that unique mix of relationships makes me "me."

To see what I mean, do a thought experiment.  Tell me who you are, and see how long you can go before you have to use relationships to other people, entities, or communities (which are just collections of people) as you describe yourself.  My guess is it won't be very long.  We are, all of us, a collection of overlapping relations--I am my father and mother's son, the brother to my younger sibling, the dad for my two kids, the spouse of my wife, the pastor of two collections of ordinary saints in two different places in a county in western Pennsylvania.  The specifics of your list of relationships will be different--and we can all quibble about how we order the list, too--but my guess is that it is nearly universal that we understand ourselves, not as isolated islands floating in a dark sea, but as creatures-in-relationship.

This idea isn't new--although sometimes we do seem to willfully ignore it.  Jean-Paul Sartre once famously suggested that other human beings are the problem, when he wrote his famous play, "No Exit," in the mid-1940s and drove home the idea that "hell is other people."  (And in all fairness to Sartre, I get it--I have been around plenty of people, and sometimes we can be absolutely rotten to each other, and I wouldn't be surprised if there are folks who do not care to be in my presence who would think that having to be in a room with me is like hell.)  

But in all seriousness, aside from the occasionally angsty existentialist philosopher (again, apologies to Mr. Sartre), it seems blatantly obvious that our very existence is inescapably relational.  I can't be "me" without there being other beings to be in relationship with.  The South African notion popularized in the US as "ubuntu" says it this way:  "I am because we are."  That is, my very existence arises from the existence of a community of others, and I can't separate myself from them without losing something of myself.

Well, that's where we start in the New Testament book we call Colossians.  It starts with relationship.  Everybody listed in that opening verse is described in terms of those to whom they relate, and how.  Look again--it's Paul "an apostle of Christ" who sends greetings.  The word "apostle," just means "a sent person," so his very title is a reminder that he is a go-between, sent by Christ to other people.  Paul's companion (and possibly the secretary writing the words as they were dictated) Timothy is also defined relationally: "our brother," a nod to their shared belonging in Christ.  Even the recipient of the letter aren't just addressed as "Dear Resident" or "To Whom It May Concern," but siblings in Christ, who live in relationship to one another because we are all deemed children of God.  You can't get away from it, as much as we sometimes want to deny our connections to others--we live as beings in relationship.

And, as we said at the outset here, that means we can't get away from each other.  We are all bound up with one another, because we are each in relationship with God.  We are stuck with each other, because God has chosen to stick with us collectively.

Everything else in our conversation in the coming days, weeks, and months of exploring this book flows from that.  We exist in connection to each other, because God has chosen to be in relationship with all of us.  I ran across a quote of the American United Methodist bishop and theologian William Willimon, who summarized the Gospel in these seven words: "God refuses to be God without us."  And I think that's just it.  Because of who God is (spoiler alert--God is fundamentally relational, too!), all of us are all entangled with each other.  God refuses to just be a lone entity floating outside of the universe somewhere, indifferent and aloof from all the sufferings and troubles of the world.  God chooses relationship, and that brings all of us along.

There will be plenty more to tease out about this starting point as we move deeper, but let me just toss one more thought out for this moment:  the church of the first century doesn't seem to have defined itself in terms of a rigid set of doctrines or beliefs, or even a universal set of actions required of all members, but saw itself as a set of relationships first.  Yes there were things Christians believed, don't get me wrong. And yes, there are some fundamental practices that Christians have been teaching one another to do for two millennia (like loving neighbors and enemies). But those weren't nearly as codified as we have made them over time, using things like creeds and catechisms to define who is in or out, or deciding that Christians all had to agree on issues like whether it was ok to permit drinking alcohol... or slavery.  Instead, we began as a community that saw our belonging connected to God's claim on us.  Since God in Christ has claimed you, then I am in relation with you, whether I know you, look like you, love like you, speak your language, or agree with you.  It starts with relationship, and then from there affects what we say, do, and think.

These days, that is important to remember, because "being church" feels different. In the time of a pandemic, we aren't "doing" a lot of the same activities we were used to, and we don't all have the same opinions about how to deal with a pandemic, either--should things be open or closed, should we have singing or not in church, should we have to wear masks, and so on.  And if church were first and foremost a club of people who all did the same activities or had the same opinions, we would all have to disband and start over again with smaller teams of perfectly like-minded individuals.  

Why don't we do that?  At least part of the answer is that we are stuck with each other... because God has chosen to stick with all  of us, and our lives are spent in relationship.  Being church is about a set of relationships:  first, God's choice to love and claim you along with the whole world, and second, our living out of that love to relate to other disciples of Jesus as part of the family and with the whole world in the same love as well.  It may be easier to be in a church community when we all think or act alike, but it's not a requirement.  We are called to love--not just each other, but the world--because God has chosen to be in relationship with all of the world, as well.

How might it change the way you interact with people today, or this week, if our starting point is that we are all bound to each other in God's love, rather than thinking I can walk away from them if I don't like them, know them, or share their views?  How might it change the ways I speak and treat others?  How might it change how I define myself?

Because... for whatever else you may say about yourself, you are already in relationship with the God who loves you, who claims you, and who has chosen to stick with you.

O God who claims us, help us to see one another as you see us--in relationship and connected to you.

"Your True Self"--A Prayer for December 25, 2020

"Your True Self"--A Prayer for December 25, 2020 (Christmas Day)

(Our final prayer in this Advent and Christmas series....)


Don’t let us miss the hints you have been dropping, God,
in the story we have heard so many times.

The borrowed food trough, the grubby night-shift strangers,
the poor parents, the journey as a refugee,
the unexpected appearance of foreigners with gifts on bended knee:
help us to see these are not mere accidents,
but glimpses of how you love,
signposts of whom you include in your embrace,
evidence of your policy to side with those left out.

Train our eyes to see you in light of this motley crew,
and to see the world through
such newly clarified vision.

Enable us to see
the choice of shepherds
over Caesars
as a clue to your agenda,
a hallmark of your Reign,
and a window to your own
divine and wondrous heart.

You keep showing us your true Self at Christmas. Help us see.

"Where We Go From Here"--A Prayer for December 24, 2020

 “Where We Go From Here”—A Prayer for December 24, 2020

The counting down is over at last,
the candles all lit, and all the doors opened.

This has been a long year’s journey,
and we confess that sometimes treat this silent night
like the finish line of a marathon:
lists checked off,
packages arrived at destinations,
frantic dashing done for the season.

We are, we admit, a little afraid
to ask the next question, which must be asked:

“Where do we go from here?”

because… we don’t know.

After this, no more countdowns,
only next steps,
one foot after another,
following where the one
from the manger leads next.

So remind us today, as we catch our breath,
that this is not an ending, but a beginning,
and that you are starting us on a grand adventure.

"You Love Broken Things"--A Prayer for December 23, 2020

“You Love Broken Things”—A Prayer for December 23, 2020

Help us, O Lord, to love broken things.

Sometimes, we confess, the respectable religiousness in us
pontificates about your holiness
and makes it sound like you yourself
cannot bear to look upon your failures and flaws and sins
without needing to zap us with lightning
for our imperfections.

We say such things because (we think)
it makes our theology tidier if you are “tough on sin.”
But you appear to have gone out of your way, God,
not only to love the messiness of us,
but to immerse yourself in it,
with us,
near us,
among us,
without holding your divine nose
even in a literal barn.

You love broken things. You love us.
Enable us to love, as you do,
this world with all its jaggedness.”

"Right Before Our Eyes"--A Prayer for December 22, 2020

“Right Before our Eyes”—A Prayer for December 22, 2020

It was cloudy after sunset where I live,
and so I could not see with my own eyes
the much-anticipated lights in the sky.

But others, some very far away, could see.
They witnessed those points of brilliance in the southwestern sky,
and their telling reminds me, O God:
that the light shines in the darkness
whether or not I can perceive it;
that there is more radiance in the world
than what appears from my viewpoint;
that sometimes we must rely on the assurance
of a voice you trust who says
“I have seen the light,
and it is real.”

Most of the world missed the child in the manger.
That doesn’t mean he was not born,
but rather only that your presence in the world
does not depend on our capacity to spot you.

Our clouded vision never stopped you from
showing up right before our eyes.

"Leave Us Perplexed"--A Prayer for December 21, 2020

“Leave Us Perplexed”—A Prayer for December 21, 2020

Your unexpected calling to Mary, O God,
the storytelling recounts,
left the soon-to-be Mother of God, in a word, “perplexed.”

We are more than a bit squeamish
about a God who perplexes us,
and a faith that provokes questions from us.

We want to tell ourselves that your word
is only ever crystal-clear,
and that your messages will always
make perfect sense to our already
completely serene minds.

Nevertheless you speak in
your own mysterious ways,
whether we like it or not,
with words whose ambiguity
can sometimes make us nervous,
with an alternative vision of life
that contradicts our assumptions,
and with declarations that sound downright impossible.
We keep trying to have an easy, unreflective, Christmas,
And yet here you are, perplexing us all over again.

Keep it up, Lord God. Leave us perplexed, too.

"Learn Your Speed"--A Prayer for December 20, 2020

"Learn Your Speed"--A Prayer for December 20, 2020

The apostle once said your arrival
comes “in the fullness of time,”
a phrase that seems all well and good, except—
we so often want to complain about your timing.

You are too slow for us when we want our circumstances changed,
and too fast for our liking when you are changing us.

And we have the barest inkling of a hunch
that one day in glory we will come to see
—like Einstein—
that time has been relative, all along,
save for the speed of your light.

So move us in line with your pace,
O God whose coming
is forever present-tense.

And make us to
learn your speed,
so that we may act
with love and truth
in the fullness of time
with the day you have given.

"A Constant Migrant"--A Prayer for December 19, 2020

"A Constant Migrant"--A Prayer for December 19, 2020

We keep wanting to build houses to contain you, O God,
and we keep thinking we are doing you a favor
when we make the offer.

The blueprints change across the generations,
from stone altars and pillars
to steeples and pews,
but they are all attempts to put you in a gilded cage.

But you are always on the move, God, aren’t you?

You are a constant migrant, refusing to stay put inside any box
we construct for you, no matter how nice it may be.

You wouldn’t take up old King David,
on his offer, not even with all his glory,
but instead choose to dwell
in the womb of an anybody
from a forgettable town
as your first house.

How you keep surprising us—
showing up where we least expect,
and then slipping out the back door
to be loose in the world yet again.

"Our Slender Moment"--A Prayer for December 18, 2020

"Our Slender Moment"--A Prayer for December 18, 2020

On the days, O God,
when we think our efforts to love are meaningless
against the vast, inky sea of meanness all around,
call to our minds the witness of Mary,

and how the mending of the entire universe hung
for one slender moment

on the “Yes” of a girl
too young to drive a car,
without her needing to know all of what that answer meant.

We have a hunch that this new day
will bring the choice to do some small thing
as a “Yes” to your way of love, too.

And before we give up
or decide it is all futile,
before we shrug it off
in apathy or despair,
grant us the wisdom and courage
to borrow her words in our slender moment:
“Here am I, the servant of the Lord. Let it be.”

Let this day be our next Yes to your way.

"Redefine Us"--A Prayer for December 17, 2020

 “Redefine Us”—A Prayer for December 17, 2020

You redefine what we thought we knew, God,
and we aren’t quite sure what to do about it.

We live in a time and in a land
that speaks so glibly of “freedom”
as if it meant we are not bound to one another,
as if we bear no responsibility for each other,
as if no one can tell me to give anything up for someone else,
as if my convenience and comfort outweigh my neighbor’s life.

We were told such freedom is the most important thing there is.

But you, O God, you are perfectly free.
You are the sovereign over all creation,
and yet your freest act of all
was the choice to lay it all down,
pouring yourself out like water,
entering our humanity,
sharing our breath and bone,
binding your life to ours
at the cost of comfort and glory.

Such is your wild and good freedom, God.

Redefine us, as well, to be free for such love.

"Ordinary Messengers"--A Prayer for December 16, 2020

 

“Ordinary Messengers”—A Prayer for December 16, 2020

The angels you send aren’t as much a surprise
as the people you pick, God.


The heavenly host have a certain respectable glory to them,
all wings and light and awe-inspiring, fear-inducing radiance.
They are hard to ignore or deny, just by their presence.
They command our attention simply by showing up.

I have a hunch that if I were you, I would only ever send angels
to do my holy bidding. Here and there all the time. Every message.

What brings us up speechless is your inexplicable insistence
on reaching out to us in the unlikely faces
of old poets and dreamers we call “prophets,”
or the wild man knee-deep in the creek
with honey in his scraggly beard
and flecks of locust wing stuck
in his teeth when he speaks,
or a girl from a backwater town
who qualified for public assistance.

They seem too plain, too coarse, too poor,
to be commissioned as your emissaries.

Your choices surprise us. Good. We need that.
Startle us again with your ordinary messengers.

"Your Stubborn Love"--A Prayer for December 15, 2020

 “Your Stubborn Love”—A Prayer for December 15, 2020

On days like today, God,
I wonder. I wonder how
you keep seeking us out,
and more than that, how
you keep choosing to hang out with us,
to be counted as one of us,
not just to love us but to identify as one of us.

We are capable of such graceful beauty
and such crude rottenness—both, minute by minute—
and in all honesty, I would have given up on us
long ago.

It is your determination, your
sheer, persistent, relentless,
determination to be with us,
that boggles my mind.

And in moments like this,
I am grateful to recall
that your stubborn love
does not depend on my approval
or understanding. It never has.

"You Arrive Breakable"--A Prayer for December 14, 2020

 “You Arrive Breakable”—A Prayer for December 14, 2020

So much feels so fragile, O God,
and we are afraid of breaking.

The fear makes us anxious,
puts us on edge,
and shortens our tempers.

We are quicker than we should be to lash out.
We are slower than others need us to be to listen.
We keep up our guard and keep each other at a distance—
at least that way (we think) we can convince the world we’re strong.

But you, O God—you… are different.
You come close. 

You arrive breakable. 

You have chosen not to keep up defenses
nor to intimidate us
into good behavior,
but dressed in our own fragility,
taking the risk of a tiny beating heart,
bearing the danger of nails and thorns.

Give us the courage to be vulnerable, and to hold
this precarious world tenderly, as you do.

"Speak Your Untamed Word"--A Prayer for December 13, 2020

“Speak Your Untamed Word”—A Prayer for December 13, 2020
(drawn from reading and wrestling with Isaiah 61)

The old visions are familiar to us, God—maybe too familiar.
We have heard the poetry of the ancient prophets
but turned them into white noise for the season,
like the millionth version of “Holly Jolly Christmas” there just to play
in the background while we order more presents and wrap them.

We know the words, “the Spirit of the Lord has anointed me,”
and we have heard the call to bring good news to the poor
and bind up the brokenhearted. We know you said something
about your year of jubilee and releasing prisoners,
but we have tried to tell ourselves you didn’t mean it.

We have tried to muzzle your words
because we would rather have a god
who is domesticated and never
actually moves in the world than
one who shakes us out of our routines.

But we need to be shaken. We need the world
your prophets wildly dreamed of.
Speak your untamed words again, O God.
And then stir something up in us
so that we will embody what they say.

"Let Our Love Be Foolish"--A Prayer for December 12, 2020

 “Let Our Love Be Foolish”—A Prayer for December 12, 2020

We get awfully hung up
on our reputations, O God.

We’re afraid of looking silly, or weak,
or—(gasp!) appearing like “losers” in someone’s eyes,
and so we are afraid to love like you.

You, the God of utterly authentic love,
you keep showing yourself in these moments
of utter recklessness and weakness,
letting others confine you upon wooden things
like mangers and crosses,
as your very means of loving us.

And somehow, you are not afraid
of showing up where
more-respectable deities
(the ones who strive to look like “winners”)
are afraid to be found.

So teach us your ways, O God,
and let our love be as foolish as yours.

"Bring Me to a Halt"--A Prayer for December 11, 2020

 “Bring Me To A Halt”—A Prayer for December 11, 2020

Help me to remember, O God,
and before that, help me to see—
that each person who crosses my path
is bearing more than meets my eye,
is recovering from more past hurts than I know,
is healing from more wounds than the show.

So slow me down, God.
before I rush to argue,
before I dismiss them out of mind,
and, yes, before I insist on “fixing,”
bring me to a halt,
for just long enough
to stop in my tracks,
and see people
both honestly and gracefully,
and to recognize your image there,
and your wounds in theirs,
before I open my mouth to speak.

"Brave Enough to Listen"--A Prayer for December 10, 2020

 

“Brave Enough to Listen”—A Prayer for December 10, 2020

We are trying, God.
We really are.

We are trying to find our way
on this road we have never walked before,
and the journey keeps stretching out ahead
farther than we had guessed at first.

As we keep putting one foot after another,
we are really struggling with figuring out
which voices to allow to guide us,
and which are the ones to ignore.
We have been lied to and tricked
more times than we’d care to say,
and we’d rather not be
fooled again.

So give us clarity today, and make us
brave enough to listen to the ones
who tell us what is true and good
even if it’s not what we wanted to hear.

"The Courage to Be Wrong"--A Prayer for December 9, 2020

 “The Courage to Be Wrong”—A Prayer for December 9, 2020

The thing we are really afraid of, God,
is admitting we were wrong.

Saying a simple sorry, or that we missed the mark,
is an easier labor. With those
we can tell ourselves we were on the right track.
We still get partial credit, we insist,
for being pointed in the right direction.

But you keep raising up voices
who call us out for being headed
away from justice, away from mercy,
away from basic decency,
away from… you.

We are afraid to admit
that we have been so wrong, and
our feet are sore from
digging our heels in so much.

Give us the courage to be wrong, Lord,
so we will quit resisting as you turn us toward your way.

"Startle Us Into Action"--A Prayer for December 7, 2020

“Startle Us into Action"—A Prayer for December 7, 2020
(drawn from reading and wrestling with Mark 1:1-8)

It’s not that we’re asleep, God,
but that we’re not paying attention.

Or rather, with so many other noisy, shiny things
all vying for our eyes and ears,
we pay attention to everything else
because it is comfortable to let them distract us.

Maybe that’s why
you keep leading people into the wilderness.

Maybe there’s nothing sacred about the sand
or holier about the parched ground,
but there is less background noise,
and fewer talking heads,
that’s for sure.

Maybe we can let these days
of somber separation
be the wilderness we need
so that the voices you raise up
can startle us into action, truth, and love
without our trying to change the channel.

"Asking for Ears"--December 6, 2020

“Asking for Ears”—A Prayer for December 6, 2020

We were never that good at listening to prophets.
You know it, God, but we need to hear ourselves say it.

They call us out, not only for the obvious sins
we can all respectably shake our fingers at,
but for the subtle forms of rottenness inside us, too.

They make us see where we have grown accustomed
to casual meanness and willful indifference.

They force us to face where we have been duped
by hucksters and fallen for snake-oil.

They compel us to admit how we have made
money our god and neighbors our enemies.

Even their dreams of a new creation
where justice is at home
make us squirm (more than a little),
because they call us to confess
how comfortable we have become
with the notions of hungry children
and endless wars.

We need to hear the dreamers you send.
So today we are asking for ears to listen.

"Manufacturing Hope"--A Prayer for December 5, 2020

“Manufacturing Hope”—A Prayer for December 5, 2020

The candles are a bit deceptive, Lord,
to be perfectly honest.

They aren’t meant to be, but it sure is easy to treat them as
some “delivered-in-30-minutes-or-it’s-free” guarantee,
ensuring that if we will only count four weeks’ time,
then the predictable Christmas magic will happen once more,
and we can go about our lives unchanged again.

But your kind of waiting, of hoping, is different.

The enslaved Hebrews waited four centuries
for freedom from Pharaoh;
exile lasted a lifetime at least.
Their seasons of watching were open-ended;
no candles promised them an end-date.

Our ancestors had to keep manufacturing hope,
day by day, breath by breath, for as long as it took,
and here, we get antsy over weeks or months of waiting.

So teach us, God, to live in a permanent state of active hope.

"Only Ours for a Season"--A Prayer for December 4, 2020

 “Only Ours for a Season”—A Prayer for December 4, 2020 

Help us to love this world, O God,
like we love our children:
knowing they have been entrusted into our hands
for a time,
but also that they will become
something beyond our wildest imaginings,
wholly new creations.

Let us hear your promise of a new heaven and earth,
not as permission for childishly wasting or exploiting,
but as the calling to care for this place, this time,
precisely because it is only ours for a season.

Teach us to love this world for all its hurts,
to bind its wounds—and one another’s—
with the same care given as for sons’ scraped knees
or daughters’ teary cheeks. Make us to see
that nothing is disposable, that all is precious,
and that everything is becoming a new creation.

"Inscribe Your Ways"--A Prayer for December 3, 2020

 "Inscribe Your Ways"--A Prayer for December 3, 2020

Now we see it, God—
that it was a lifetime of listening
to the stories of the ancestors
and the dreams of the prophets
that led Mary to say her “Yes”
when you called to her.

It was the ancient songs of Hannah and Miriam
which she had heard a thousand times since childhood
that inspired her own anthem of praise
for your revolutionary table-turning reign.

The dramatic decisions were long in coming,
the groundwork laid as your word shaped her,
steeping in her teenage mind like tea,
shaping her like the slow erosion of a river on the canyon.

Inscribe your ways on these stony hearts, too, O God,
so that those stories and dreams and songs will form us, too,
into people who say “Yes” to your upside-down ways.

"Shaken and Stirred"--A Prayer for December 2, 2020

"Shaken and Stirred"--A Prayer for December 2, 2020
(drawn from Psalm 80:1-3)

A poet from another time
taught us to pray to you, God, by saying,
“Stir up your strength, and come to help us.”

But to be completely honest with you,
we’re not sure we are ready to be stirred up...just yet.

We’re not sure we are comfortable
with how you will shake up our old routines
and jar us out of apathy toward our neighbors.

We have curated our numbness,
and we are not at all certain that
we are prepared to have our apple-carts upset
by a God who stirs things up
and who never leaves us the same.

Not Mary, minding her business.
Not Joseph, just trying to get some sleep.
Not the graveyard-shift shepherds putting in their hours.

We resist your change, but we need it.
Come to us again, O God. Leave us shaken and stirred.